Bloomberg Hong Kong’s biggest landlords have begun to slash rents for their commercial tenants as retailers struggle amid the spreading coronavirus. Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd, the city’s largest developer by market value, will reduce rents for February by 30% to as much as 50% for some of its mall tenants to help them ride out the impact from the ...

Bloomberg Singapore will roll out a “strong” economic package next week as part of its national budget to mitigate the economic fallout from the coronavirus outbreak, with the impact on the trade-reliant city-state seen as worse than the 2003 Sars pandemic. The increased economic threat stems from several reasons, such as China’s economy being much bigger today as well as ...

Bloomberg The UK is planning to crack down on damaging Internet content on social media platforms, which could face fines for failing to prevent activities such as child exploitation and incitement to violence. The government is “minded” to give broadcast regulator Ofcom a role as internet watchdog, Culture Secretary Nicky Morgan and Home Secretary Priti Patel said in a statement ...

Bloomberg A deep slump in euro-area industrial output at the end of last year highlights the scale of the challenge the sector will face in 2020. The 2.1% drop — the steepest in almost four years — will raise doubts about a meaningful rebound in momentum. The economy barely expanded in the fourth quarter and the outlook at the start ...

Bloomberg Lyft Inc quarterly results and guidance for 2020 disappointed investors who punished the ride-hailing company for not promising profits sooner. The shares dropped more than 5% in extended trading. Lyft’s results came a few days after larger rival Uber Technologies Inc reported quarterly numbers that blew past analysts’ expectations and announced that it was moving up its target for ...

Bloomberg Air pollution from burning fossil fuels is generating economic losses of $8 billion a day, according to a Greenpeace report. That’s about 3.3% of global gross domestic product, or $2.9 trillion per year, according to a report from Greenpeace Southeast Asia and Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air. China, the US and India bear the highest economic ...

Bloomberg Twitter Inc expanded efforts to protect the US census, saying it will tweak search results for census-related terms to prompt users to visit the US Census Bureau website. The social-media company also said it will continue to prohibit posts containing false or misleading information about how to participate in the national survey — a policy that also applies to ...

Bloomberg Google claimed the European Commission’s tough antitrust enforcement is a threat to internet innovation on day one of its courtroom fight against a 2.4 billion-euro ($2.6 billion) fine for allegedly thwarting smaller shopping-search rivals. “If Google would have faced the commission’s decision in 2008, Google would have had no other option but to abandon its innovative technologies and its ...

Bloomberg Vladimir Putin’s surprise firing of Russia’s government and unveiling of constitutional changes that would weaken the presidency may only be Plan B for retaining power after his final term ends in 2024. In the month before Putin’s January 15 announcement, he’d pushed hard to convince his longer-serving counterpart in Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, to revive a moribund agreement to create ...

Bloomberg Bernie Sanders’s narrow win in New Hampshire makes him the undisputed leader of the Democratic Party’s left flank, with a second powerful showing that puts him in position to stake a claim to the Democratic presidential nomination as the race turns west and south. A surprisingly strong third-place showing from Amy Klobuchar in New Hampshire further scrambles the race ...